1. Technical Field
The disclosed embodiments generally relate to the fields of optical networks, data switching and data routing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data networks have become ubiquitous. In November 2005, an online tracking service reported that an estimated 972 million people worldwide had Internet access. In the United States alone, over 200 million people have Internet access. Approximately 70 million users in the United States now use high-speed technologies, such as Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), cable modems and the like for their Internet access. In general, an explosion of bandwidth has occurred as the popularity of the Internet has grown. Other high-speed protocols, such as Gigabit Ethernet and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), have also been developed to make more data available to users more quickly.
As a result, data networking switches, routers and other platforms that are employed in a business environment are primarily designed to provide a large amount of bandwidth to their users. For example, a conventional network architecture for a server farm is shown in FIG. 1 (1-1). As shown in FIG. 1, the hardware may include a host device 100, connected to an electronic module 110 and an optical module 115 by, for example, a host interface slot 105. An optical fiber 120 may then be connected to a port of a switching/routing blade 125. The blade may include a framer 130 and an interface 135 to the backplane 140 that connects the blade 125 to other blades and to fabrics 145. A power source 150 that typically supplies between about 1 kW and about 10 kW of power is used.
In a conventional server farm architecture, host devices 100 are interconnected via a routing or switching network. Typically, the host devices 100 use electronic switching. As a result, the host devices 100 are centrally located or located within close proximity to one another because electronic switching conventionally requires close proximity for the signals being switched. As the number of signals increases (i.e., as the bandwidth of the host devices 100 increases), the mechanism for switching the signals becomes denser. The need to move data in the electronic domain has led to a “backplane” interconnect design that forces internal hardware on the blades 125 to interface to the backplane 140 and fabric 145 electronics.
Since data networking has focused on providing high bandwidth, secondary concerns, such as the size of a network component, the weight of a network component and the power consumed by a network component have largely been ignored. For example, data networking components are generally set in racks that extend nearly from floor to ceiling and are approximately two feet in both width and depth. This is because the tight timing requirements of traditional network components described above have resulted in a centralized location for backplanes, blades and fabrics. In a typical business environment, entire rooms are dedicated to network components that provide an intranet backbone for the company.
Moreover, high-speed communication requirements have led to power-intensive electronics systems with a high number of interconnects. While power is considered in the development of network components, such components still typically draw large amounts of power. Power costs (including cooling costs) can affect a company's bottom line. Moreover, generating and supplying adequate power to a network component is a non-trivial design issue.
The high number of interconnects described above requires the backplane to have a large number of layers, be physically large in size, and be expensive. Accordingly, the copper backplane used in conventional network components must be wider if more line cards can be connected to it. The additional copper used in the backplane and the additional fabric cards required to support the backplane add a significant amount of weight to any conventional network solution. Moreover, power usage and heat dissipation are concentrated in a centralized location. The use of additional resources leads to increased cost for conventional network components, which again leads to a reduction in a company's bottom line.
As a result, businesses would benefit greatly from network components with reduced space, weight and power requirements. However, development has progressed slowly in this area. Instead, network components are simply made bigger, heavier, and to consume more power in the pursuit of supplying higher bandwidth.
In atypical environments, such as airborne or shipborne networks, space, weight and power become even more important for network design. However, the lack of progress in reducing the space, weight and power of network components described above has restricted the availability of high-bandwidth networks in such environments.
For example, space is at a premium on most airplanes and smaller ships. As such, network components of the size used in most business environments could exceed the available storage space in such environments. Data networks capable of providing on-demand video and audio programming to airplane passengers have developed slowly at least because of the size of conventional networking equipment. Similarly, military aircraft often require high-speed communication between subsystems or are used as a flying communication hub. However, conventional networking equipment is limited in its ability to perform this task because of the limited footprint that can be provided to all functions in an aircraft.
In addition, the weight of a network component has a direct effect on fuel consumption in airborne or shipborne environments as well since the added weight increases the drag on the airplane or ship.
Furthermore, the amount of power consumed by network components directly affects fuel consumption since power in airborne and shipborne environments is generated within the environment itself. For ships that are at sea for long periods of time, the power consumed by conventional networking equipment inhibits the ability to use such equipment because of the drain on limited energy reserves.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and system for providing high bandwidth, low size, low weight, and low power.
A need exists for a method and system for providing high-bandwidth data networking in a self-contained environment.
A need exists for a method and system that provides a significant reduction in space, weight and power over existing systems.
A further need exists for a method and system that permits network components forming a network backbone to be decentralized to allow for better heat dissipation.
The present disclosure is directed to solving one or more of the above-listed problems.